Even though it is physically and technically possible to keep on going and only ever spending one night in any single place, this is not something I'd recommend to anyone if they don't have to. Travelling at such a rate for too long can cause it to become a bit of a blur and make it hard to really get a feel for any one place. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the "Not another temple" syndrome (or "Not another castle" syndrome if you're in Ireland) as things all start to look the same. Admittedly, we've started to feel some of this blur a little bit recently because we've been on a string of one and two nighters ever since Antigua, while getting back to Mexico City. There has been some cracking places and excellent moments on this leg of the journey, so I don't think we'd change the way we travelled if we had the choice again, but maybe for future plans it'll be better to change our tact slightly.

Leaving San Cristobal de las Casas to go to Palenque was a hard decision to make since we were so tight for time and had quite a long distance to travel to get to Mexico (and then on to Leon, where we would meet our friends). Yet we couldn't disregard the advice of our other friends, Merce and Noe (who are also travelling around Mexico), so we headed to the Palenque ruins. It turned out to be an excellent choice, as after a long day of travelling we got to the nearby Panchan campsite (also recommended by Merce) and it was superb! We were in the middle of the jungle in a magical place where we could hear the sound of the wilderness. We went to dinner at the restaurant there, and to our surprise there was a whole show on with Mexican music, bongos and fire dancing... Just amazing! To top it off, the day after we went to see the Mayan ruins which were certainly the most impressive that we've seen so far and also the cheapest.

The next big stop before leaving Mexico was in a city called Leon (4 or 5 hours northwest of Mexico city) where we caught up with some friends. Christina and Moi really gave us an excellent reception and we had a great weekend while they showed us around. When they took us to see a lovely university town near Leon called Guanajuato, we got the chance to go out clubbing which was something that we hadn't done much of since hitting the road.

Before flying out of Mexico city we took a quick bus tour around it which lasted for about three hours. This left us with the impression that the capital is closer to being like some cities in the US than it is to many of the Mexican cities and towns we'd seen in the Yucatan or Chiapas.

Time has really gone by fast for us in this part of the world. It's hard to believe that we landed in Cancun over a month ago!